Lightning Round

The Lightning Round was a segment on Red Eye. In this segment, two or three smaller stories were covered quickly with the panelists providing brief answers. About a year after its inception, panelists began offering longer answers to Lightning Round questions similar to regular discussion segments. When it debuted, the Lightning Round usually appeared during "D" block, but occasionally was featured in the "B" block. After the Halftime Report was retired in mid-2013, the Lightning Round took Halftime's place in the "C" block.

There were originally two versions of this segment's intro, a long version -- which totals eight seconds and features the show's announcer, Tom O'Connor, dragging out the word "round" -- and a short version in which O'Connor says "Lightning Round" very quickly. The long version was one of the more popular sound bites on the show amongst fans; Red Eye panelist Sherrod Small also took a liking to it, saying the intro along with O'Connor's recording. After several of Small's appearances doing this, they put Small on a split screen with the Lightning Round's logo. In addition, O'Connor recorded a special version for Small's appearances, that is much longer than the standard version. The short version appeared for the last time on November 28, 2011 due to the popularity of the long version. Andy Levy stated in a podcast that he preferred the short version and, in mid-2012, took to acting visibly aggravated at the long intro when introducing the segment and after the animation had ended. The short version was eventually unretired specifically for Levy when he guest hosted.

The Lightning Round was used regularly for the final time on November 12, 2013. It was brought back on December 5 specifically for Sherrod Small, who was on the panel that night; it reappeared on January 9, 2014, again with Small on the panel.

The Lightning Round made its debut in late 2010 as Stories We Sort of Liked But Not Enough To Include Earlier in the Show But Still Wanted to Talk About So Let's Really Quickly Do them Now. It appeared under this name for the final time on February 17, 2011; its more well known name debuted February 21.